Founding CBCRP Director

Marion H. E. Kavanaugh-Lynch, M.D., M.P.H.

Kavanaugh-Lynch was the director of the California Breast Cancer Research Program (CBCRP) for 29 years. In this position, she developed strategies and guides priorities for the $15 million per year that California invests in research to bring an end to the disease. She managed the awarding of over 1000 research grants to more than 150 different institutions across the state of California, totaling approximately $300 million.

Her accomplishments include championing the role of advocates and survivors in the peer review process, developing a successful model for funding community-based participatory research and developing rigorous evaluations of the program. She led a national panel that developed research strategies to explore the role of environmental contaminants in breast cancer and is now implemented those research strategies through CBCRP.

Kavanaugh-Lynch earned her B.A. at Bryn Mawr College, an M.D. and an M.S. in pharmacology at New York University and an M.P.H. in epidemiology at University of Washington. She has had postgraduate training in medical oncology and in cancer epidemiology and prevention. Her career includes several years of basic science research in developmental biology, clinical practice in internal medicine and oncology, clinical research on bone marrow transplantation for the treatment of breast cancer, and public health research in women's health, lesbian health and breast cancer. Her commitment to bringing women's voices into research and decisions about research drew her to CBCRP, a program that arose and continues to grow through the energy, wisdom and dreams of women with breast cancer.

Kavanaugh-Lynch has served on peer review and advisory panels for the National Institutes of Health (National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institute of Maternal and Child Health), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the California Department of Health Services and Office of Women's Health, and the American Legacy Foundation. She is a founding member of the International Cancer Research Partners, and has served a number of private organizations, including the American Cancer Society, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, the Breast Cancer Fund and Breast Cancer Action. She was recently appointed by Speaker Fabian Nunez to the Scientific Guidance Panel for the California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program. She is the recipient of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Susan Love Foundation's Excellence in Philanthropy Award and the Zero Breast Cancer's Community Research Award.